I've had my fit for over 6 months now, and between the auto carwashes, and parallel parking on NYC streets, the fit is getting slightly beat up. It pisses me off, as I never have hit anybody else when parallel parking, but apparenly a lot of people have beater cars and just don't care. I noticed another scratch today across the left part of my hood, and this one put a nice scratch into the plastic of my headlight. ARGH!

How long would you guys wait before getting all these things taken care of at a detailer? Do you recommend a good online place for touchup paint? I have a few shallow but long scratches on the side where it looks like someone deliberately keyed the car. I wonder if touchup paint would be enough for these?

I'm not THAT anal about the look of my car, but it is disheartening, especially on a BLACK car, to see these little imperfections start multiplying.

 

Dude, Dont bother to touch up the paint. It looks horrible. Waint until youi have a garage, or better parking before you paint. and try to be as careful as posible when parking. But Living in NYC, its a battle. People dont care, Dont give a S@@@. So a new car in the City is brutal. I lived in NYC for 30 yrs. I now live in the Burbs, and my Fit is garage kept. I love it. Dont get me wrong. I loved NYC, but not street parking.

 

Disagree.

You need to touch up deep gouges before they rust.

There are several ways to make the damaged areas "pretty". I use the Ding King for parking lot dents,
Directions

and either Final Finish or Langka to smooth out the touch-up paint afterwards (I do this maybe once a year). Both available from Eastwood:

Eastwood Company: Search Results for paint chip repair


Of course, a pro detailer/paintless dent remover "pro" would do a better job, for more money...but you STILL need to protect the sheetmetal from the salt.